1/20/2012

DBInfo - new IBSurgeon's free product

IBSurgeon DBInfois designed to visualize internal structure's statistics, so administrators or developers can view how much data, index, blob or other kind of information your Firebird or InterBase database stores.

Frequiently Asked Questions

1. What is the purpose of DBInfo?

This tool allows you to

view how much data, index, blob or other kind of information your InterBase or Firebird database store

detect some database corruptions

look at database page size, overall file size, database format

have some fun watching dynamically changing % indicators.

2. What InterBase and Firebird versions are supported?

Any from InterBase 4.0 to the latest InterBase and Firebird versions. DBInfo supports the following database formats:

8.x - InterBase 4.x

9.x - InterBase 5.x

10.0 - InterBase 6.x, Firebird 1.0

10.1 - Firebird 1.5.x

11.x - InterBase 7.0/7.1/7.5

11.x - Firebird 2.0/2.1/2.5

11.x - Firebird 2.x

12.x - InterBase 2007

13.x - InterBase 2009

15.x - InterBase XE

3. Do I need to have InterBase or Firebird server running?

No. DBInfo can check database file by itself, without server, and it does not need client library also.

4. Can I check for database contents on remote server?

A. Yes and no. Since DBInfo opens database file by itself, i.e. use direct access to database, you can check for database contents of database on remote server only if this database file is being shared on network.

5. May I use DBInfo if my database is on Linux (or other Unix)?

No, DBInfo is a Windows Win32 tool, so you may only check database files that can be accessed as files from Windows - locally or at shared folders.

6. Can DBInfo corrupt my database?

Never. DBInfo only reads the database file, and never writes to it. The open mode of the database file is read-only in any case.

7. May I check database contents while InterBase or Firebird is working with it?

Yes. DBInfo can open the database file even when InterBase or Firebird works with it. But, since reading the whole database file affects disk performance, be sure that at the moment your database is not at high load by applications.Also, if you will check the database when the database is being modified by InterBase or Firebird, DBInfo may show warning that database is corrupted, which may be wrong.

8. What is the purpose of the option "Do not use Windows file cache"?

DBInfo can scan database file with two modes - using Windows cache or not using it. Usually when you copy file on Windows, it goes to the file cache. And, file cache is being allocated from physical memory. So, the bigger is file, the more amount of file cache is used by Windows. This can cause applications and other data to being moved to virtual memory, and slowdown computer performance.For example, for database files larger than 500mb you could notice contiguous slowdown of DBInfo while scanning database file. Thus, we decided to turn off using cache in DBInfo by default. This allows to scan 1-10-100 gb databases without performance loss for DBInfo and operating system itself.

9. Why percentage of blob pages is marked by that color?

The colors is used to paint percentage bars does not have any meanings, except for bad pages found that is marked as red. This is the only case when we pays your attention to the damaged pages found in database.